Nutro Natural Food - Page 1

Has anyone used the new Nutro Natural food? If you have, how have your dogs done on it? Dawn Bonome

let me guess... salespeople at the pet store told you to try it? yah, they get paid to sell it to you. in my opinion, if a product is good, no matter if it is dish liquid or ant killer, you don't need to pay pushy salespeople to make it fly off the shelves. nutro markets to the "all-natural" crowd as well- just because something is natural does not make it good. i'd rather have a synthetic raincoat that a natural cotton slicker, wouldn't you? another point: it doesn't matter if the nutrients are coming from a labratory or a farm, it is how well the animal can extract them & if the animal can use them in the most efficient way. there is not a problem anymore with dog foods being insufficient in nutrients, however, nowadays, you run into the problem of "meets or exceeds"- people often think, "well, if a little of something is good for my dog, then a lot must be better!" wrong- the body, i.e. the liver, has to work harder to flush those excess out or even worse, some cannot be flushed, such as fat-soluable vitamins, so build-up occurs. last point: nutro is the most common food fed to puppies during their stay at that lovely place called a petstore...

Hi lioness, Thank you for your comments. if you have any suggestions on dog food, send them my way. What do you feed? Dawn Bonome

As good as Mercedes is, they still pay sales people to enlighten customers and to answer questions. That is the way I feel about dog food companies paying sales people. How good is your product if people are not educated about it?

Best food on the market is Abady,pain in the ass to feed but worth it,they now make a kibble and also fresh raw meat.

After many good comments in this forum regarding Royal Canine, I gradually switched my dogs over, and gave it a try. It is made for specific breeds, including German Shepherd and contains vitamins and minerals required by the breed. They LOVE it, and within 2-3 weeks, I noticed a great improvement in their coats especially...silky soft, shiny and shed much less. I won't feed anything else from now on! I had been feeding a premium food prior too, and still can note a remarkable difference. I even use it for training treats! (I sound like one of the sales people mentioned above! Sorry!)

shak- kind of a one sided education if the enlighteners are only enlightening for profit of one particular product, wouldn't you agree? this is the reason btw that hills science diet & eukanuba, amoung other brands, do not sell their products in grocery stores. your 15 year old bag boy couldn't possibly tell you what percentage protein a growing large breed puppy needs to survive. also, i wouldn't go into a mercedes dealership when what i really wanted was a ferrari 360... just can't fit the dogs into it :0D dawn- i feed eukanuba & have never had a problem. i supplement my older gsd rescue with glucosamine/chondrotin sulfate tablets i pick up at sam's club. i use chicken hot dogs from wal-mart to track with & they are allowed to eat vegetable parings when i make my own salads, but that's it. simplicity is best in my opinion. i do moisten their dry with a tiny bit of water & i also feed twice daily for prevention's sake. i get many compliments on their coats, their eyes are bright, their teeth are white, & their weight is always great. my dogs are happy to eat this. i would also recommend hills science diet or iams as far as commercial dog foods are concerned.

Dawn, I know a lot of dogs that do fine on this food. The problem I have with it is the first ingredient is meat... Which is good but and unless they've recently changed their formula there is only one source of meat in the food period. Also, they are owned by Mars the candy people so who knows what will be added to the food in the future. Everyone touts how good Royal Canin 24 is but the food contains several sources of Soy which isn't good. I think the cost is too much for the hype of this food. My dogs loved it for a few weeks then quickly tired of eating it. The best diet for dog is raw meat but if that isn't available then the next choice would be Chicken Soup For the dog lovers Adult blend. It has a minimum of 4 meats in the ingredients and the German Shepherd does well on the formula. Diamond the makers of the Chicken soup food also make a product similar to Chicken soup called Premium Edge. Still same quality but fewer meats. This food is $23 for a 35 pound bag appose to $30 for a 35pound bag of the Chicken Soup food. Dawn, I believe everyone feels that their brand of food is best. You will just have to try it and see how your dogs fair on it. Good Luck, Birdy...

"Dawn, I believe everyone feels that their brand of food is best. You will just have to try it and see how your dogs fair on it." well spoken birdy dawn- is this diet in question regarding a pancreatic dog of yours?

Blitz has allergies and the Royal Canine and Nutro made his scratching worse, possibly the soy in the RC, forget if Nutro has that ingredient. Dogs with food allergies are almost always allergic to the protein source(s)rather than a preservative or coloring. I've switched him to Eagle Pak fish and oatmeal for his morning meal and feed raw at night, usually a big turkey wing or a back and neck, ground veggies, salmon oil. It's too early to tell yet, but he seems to be scratching less, will wait another month to brag too loudly. Eagle Pak is formulated to be fed along with 20% raw.It's hard to find in this area and can be very costly for those with mulitple dogs. I will probably eventually wean him over to 100% raw, but I must admit it's a lot easier to feed from a bag than to formulate your own balanced raw diet. IMO, I think raw is the way to go for most canines, but it can be be very expensive and a pain in the butt to feed while traveling with the dog or while boarding him. The Eagle Pack combination works well for that since the dog can be fed 100% for a few weeks or even months and it sure isn't going to kill them to eat it (or most other commercail feed for that matter.) For your average, healthy GSD, most commercial dog foods will probably do just fine. But for a performance dog or one with allergies or other health issues, most of us would want to find something extra be it in the form of a supplement or a premium food. For certain, most of our dogs eat better than we do LOL. As Charlie mentioned, Abady is a very excellent food too, used by a lot of dog mushers who must have high energy dogs with a lot of endurance. Good thread.